World Bank approves $250m loan to Morocco
MEMO | December 16, 2020
The World Bank has agreed to grant Morocco $250 million to support local agricultural, as part of a joint operation with the French Development Agency.
This came in a statement issued by the World Bank on Wednesday, after its executive board approved the loan on Tuesday.
The loan aims to support the Generation Green programme, a government strategy for developing agriculture.
The statement announced: “The funding will also support the country’s economic response to the coronavirus pandemic.”
The loan will finance entrepreneurship and training programmes for villages’ youth, with a view to attracting private investments into the agricultural food products sector, and removing regulatory and financing obstacles to stimulate the creation of job opportunities.
According to official statistics, the agricultural sector contributes about 14 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). It presents an important source of employment for 75 per cent of the country’s villagers.
Russia may benefit from trade rift between China and Australia
RT | December 16, 2020
Russian coal suppliers could boost their exports to China, as the world’s largest coal buyer is reportedly curbing shipments of the commodity from Australia amid escalating tensions between the two countries.
The developer of the largest Russian coal deposit, Elga, announced on Tuesday that it created a joint venture with a Chinese shipping company to promote Russian coal on the massive Chinese market. The project between Elgaugol and GH-Shipping is set to satisfy China’s growing demand for high-quality coking coal.
The deal is set to help boost Russian coal supplies to China from one million tons this year to 30 million tons in 2023, and the developer could potentially further increase annual imports to 50 million tons. The joint venture is also expected to contribute to the ambitious goal of the Russian and Chinese governments to significantly increase bilateral trade turnover, as it would increase the volume of trade between the two countries by $5 billion per year.
“The supplies of coking coal from Elga will replace a significant amount of Australian and American coal of similar quality,” Elgaugol Director-General Aleksandr Isaev said.
Another Russian producer, Mechel, previously said that it was planning to increase exports of coal to China amid Beijing’s restrictions on Australian imports. In November, the shipments rose by 13 percent, and are set to jump by 25-30 percent in December, Mechel CEO Oleg Korzhov said as cited by Russian media.
Tensions between the two countries have been growing for around three years, after the Australian government began limiting Chinese investments in the country. In 2018, Canberra added fuel to the fire when it banned China’s Huawei and ZTE from its 5G rollout. The most recent escalation occurred when Australia pushed in April for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.
Earlier this week, Chinese state-linked media reported that the nation’s top economic planner gave domestic power plants the greenlight to import coal without clearance restrictions from several countries “except for Australia.” While Beijing has not officially confirmed the restrictions, Canberra has already urged the Chinese government to clarify the reports.
This week’s reports are not the first to allege that China is quietly banning coal imports from Australia. Last month, several million tons of Australian coal worth more than $500 million were reportedly stuck in Chinese ports.
Cuban Officials Reject Claims That ‘Havana Syndrome’ Was Caused by Directed Radio Frequency Energy
By Gaby Arancibia – Sputnik – 16.12.2020
In late 2016, reports emerged that staff members at US and Canadian embassies in Havana, Cuba, were experiencing symptoms that included hearing loss, dizziness and a sensation or vibration of pressure in the head. The mysterious health effects resulted in the US accusing Cuba of carrying out attacks on its diplomats, resulting in new hostilities.
Cuban officials issued a statement on Tuesday rejecting claims made in a US report that alleged directed radio frequency energy was likely to blame for mysterious health ailments suffered by several diplomats working in Havana, Cuba.
Luis Velázquez, the president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, noted in the release that the organization disagrees with the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) December 6 report, even though it “made progress in defining the medical characterization of the causes and issued valid recommendations.”
“The report does not provide scientific evidence that radio frequency waves of great intensity existed in the area where the diplomats were located,” the statement read, before underscoring that the NAS conclusion was more of a hypothesis and “certainly not a proven fact.”
The NAS report was commissioned by the US State Department, a fact which likely raised red flags for the Cuban organization.
Velázquez’s statement further stressed that the Cuban body recommended both “journalists and governments to listen to science and refrain from endorsing conspiracy theories.” He added that symptoms reported by the affected individuals “should be considered and treated as a health problem, not as a political issue.”
NAS explained in its reporting that it had determined “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” was the “most plausible mechanism”, after examining symptoms experienced by diplomatic staff. It’s worth noting that the study authors did indicate that a more thorough investigation would be needed.
Although health problems were first documented in late 2016, reports on the matter were not raised until 2017, after dozens of individuals reported symptoms. The unusual development was eventually dubbed the “Havana Syndrome.”
Initial reports suggested that afflicted individuals began first hearing an odd noise for a period of time, often late at night in their homes or hotel rooms. In some cases, the sudden wave of headaches and dizzy spells would prompt an individual to become nauseous.
With no clear understanding of what was happening, the Trump administration subsequently declared that the health problems were the likely result of a coordinated attack against American diplomats.
By August 2017, tensions between the US and the island nation reached a new height as two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the US. Some 15 Cuban diplomats would be expelled in the months that followed. Non-essential staff at the US embassy in Havana were later removed, leaving only a skeleton crew to keep the site running.
The Cuban government has repeatedly rejected all allegations that it had any involvement in the incidences, going so far as to offer its cooperation on investigations. Trump administration officials have refused to collaborate.
When the elderly and frail die after receiving the COVID vaccine
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | December 16, 2020
CNN has the story. And it’s quite a story: “Why vaccinate our most frail? Odd vote out shows the dilemma”, December 4. [1]
“The vote to recommend long-term care residents be among the first to receive Covid-19 vaccinations was not unanimous.”
“Out of a panel of 14 CDC vaccine advisers, a lone doctor said no.”
“’Odd woman out, I guess,’ Dr. Helen ‘Keipp’ Talbot, of Vanderbilt University, told her colleagues. ‘I still struggle with this. This was not an easy vote’.”
“Talbot was worried about whether the vaccine would even work in such frail, vulnerable patients. Even more, she worried about how it might look if the vaccine failed in that group, or how it would affect public perception if residents died soon after getting the vaccine.”
“The Covid-19 vaccines have not been tested in the frail elderly, many of whom are residents of long-term care facilities.”
Let’s stop here for a moment. First, we learn that the clinical trials of the COVID vaccine have not used the frail and elderly as volunteers. Therefore, there is NO evidence that the vaccine is safe or effective in that very large group. If this doesn’t give the frail and elderly and their families pause for thought, nothing will.
Second, Dr. Talbot is worried about “public perception,” when the elderly die right after getting the vaccination.
Well, what would YOU think if your mother died the day after she received the COVID shot?
The CNN article gets worse. Read on. Next up is a comment from Dr. Kelly Moore, “associate director of the Immunization Action Coalition, which is supporting frontline workers who will administer Covid-19 vaccinations.”
“’Since they [the COVID vaccines] haven’t been studied in people in those [elderly] populations, we don’t know how well the vaccine will work for them. We know that most vaccines don’t work nearly as well in a frail elderly person as they would in someone who is fit and vigorous, even if they happen to be the same age,’ Moore said.”
Again—zero evidence the COVID vaccines work in elderly and frail populations. Most vaccines don’t “work nearly as well.”
CNN: “When shots begin to go into arms of [nursing home and long-term care facility] residents, Moore said Americans need to understand that deaths may occur that won’t necessarily have anything to do with the vaccine.”
“’We would not at all be surprised to see, coincidentally, vaccination happening and then having someone pass away a short time after they receive a vaccine, not because it has anything to do with the vaccination but just because that’s the place where people at the end of their lives reside,’ Moore said.”
“’One of the things we want to make sure people understand is that they should not be unnecessarily alarmed if there are reports, once we start vaccinating, of someone or multiple people dying within a day or two of their vaccination who are residents of a long-term care facility. That would be something we would expect, as a normal occurrence, because people die frequently in nursing homes’.”
Right. Don’t be alarmed.
Don’t worry if people who are doing reasonably well suddenly die right after getting the COVID shot. It’s just a coincidence.
Their long-term health conditions just happened to kick in a day or two after vaccination. Nothing to wonder about.
Don’t kick up a fuss if it’s YOUR father or mother who died. Stay calm. You can be sure the doctors will let you know if your mother died from the vaccine. Of course they will.
Even though the vaccine has never been tested on the elderly and frail, the doctors know whether a death occurred from the vaccination or from other causes. And they’ll tell the truth. They always do.
The doctors quoted in this CNN article are obviously worried about people dying as a result of the vaccine. They know it’s going to happen. They’re thinking out loud about what they can do to stem the tide of public outrage—particularly from the families of those who die.
The best idea they can come up with is: “these people die anyway.”
I remind readers that, for months, I’ve been reporting on the huge percentage of all so-called COVID deaths that have been occurring among the elderly in nursing homes, in long-term care facilities, in hospitals, in their homes. [2]
These people were already suffering from multiple long-term serious health conditions. On top of that, they had been treated for years with an array of toxic medical drugs.
And then, they’re absolutely terrified when they receive a diagnosis of COVID. Then they’re isolated, cut off from family and friends.
And they give up and die.
NO VIRUS IS REQUIRED TO EXPLAIN THESE DEATHS.
This is forced premature killing of old people. It’s murder by COVID diagnosis and isolation. [2]
And now, these people will receive an experimental RNA vaccine, whose effects include auto-immune reactions; the body basically attacks itself. [3]
More killing.
And doctors advising the CDC are telling us not to be alarmed.
The deaths are just routine.
Lots and lots of doctors who know what’s going on are thinking, “What if all this comes back on ME?”
Well, it IS coming back on you, Doctors.
You’re killers in white coats who are supposed to be saving lives.
SOURCES:
[2] https://www.denverpost.com/2020/12/09/pfizer-covid-vaccine-allergic-reactions/
Iran calls for end to development, testing of nuclear weapons: Envoy
Press TV | December 16, 2020
Iran’s permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations has called for an end to the development and testing of nuclear weapons, saying such a move is the first step toward total nuclear disarmament.
Kazem Gharibabadi made the plea at the 55th Session of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the Austrian capital on Tuesday and underlined Iran’s long-standing position on the need for the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons.
“Iran supports the objectives stipulated in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with the ultimate goal of disarmament, as well as general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” he said.
“We also strongly believe that stopping all explosive tests of nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosions, as well as ending the quantitative development and qualitative improvement of these weapons, is the first necessary step towards nuclear disarmament,” Gharibabadi added.
The Iranian envoy censured Washington’s approach on the non-proliferation regime and expressed concern over the possibility of the US conducting nuclear test explosions, saying the move undermines international peace and security.
Gharibabadi stressed that a possible resumption of the tests would breach a treaty on the moratorium on such practices, and also violates the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Iran’s permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations touched on Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program and called on the kingdom to join the NPT.
Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions have prompted worries in the global community over the past few years, especially after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hinted in 2018 that the kingdom may go for nukes.
Widespread reports of Saudi Arabia’s undeclared nuclear activities were confirmed in August, when satellite images revealed a large compound in a suspicious location in the heart of the desert.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Western officials, reported that Saudi Arabia had built a facility, with foreign aid, for extraction of yellow cake from uranium ore near the remote town of al-Ula.
What Joe Biden’s Electoral College “Victory” Really Means
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | December 15, 2020
So, the electoral college cast their votes, and they handed Joe Biden the Presidency. The decision was never in any serious doubt.
We’ve been over the evidence the election was rigged, we’ve discussed at length the potential corruption of postal ballots (historically the least safe way to vote, and most liable to fraud). There’s no need to go over it again.
Given all that, it was inevitable the Electoral College would vote Biden in, and the lawsuits would be turned out of court unheard. You don’t go to the trouble of fixing a nationwide election and without knowing you have the judges and bureaucrats on-side first. When you’re staging a coup, the vast majority of the work is behind the scenes – securing the loyalty of soldiers and officials and media mouthpieces. You don’t actually act until the last minute, one frenzied moment of violent change, then a steady period securing of your position.
Donald Trump’s cause has been largely hopeless since well before polling day. He will be forced aside, one way or another. Likely peacefully, thanks to some backroom deal. What his many millions of supporters do after that is anyone’s guess…there is definitely a potential for chaos.
At this point the question isn’t “was the election fixed?”, the question is “why was the election fixed?”
The issue here isn’t whether or not America’s democracy is corrupt, anyone paying attention can see that it is (and has been for decades). The issue is why are they making it so obvious, and what is so important about Biden being President?
Is it about the Iran nuclear deal, Wearing masks? Funding the WHO, or staying put in Somalia? Unlikely. These are policy changes you can bring about through passive resistance, bureaucratic red-tape, or simply straight up saying you did them when you didn’t. You don’t need to stage a coup to keep 700 soldiers in Somalia.
So what would be worth all the trouble?
Perhaps for a possible answer to this question we should look back at the last US election so openly and obviously subject to creative vote distribution: Bush vs Gore in 2000.
The 2000 election was almost certainly fixed. It was clearly very important that George W. Bush became President, and with him came his coterie of neocon warmongers and puppetmasters.
Less than a year into his Presidency, 9/11 happened. Less than two months after that, the US invaded Afghanistan. The war on Terror had begun, and Iraq, Syria, and Libya would all be caught up in the blaze.
It wasn’t just about starting a few wars, either.
It was about a “single catastrophic and catalyzing event” triggering monumental changes in the way the world works. It was about Gitmo and Drone Strikes and Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. It was about normalising execution without trial, constant surveillance and keeping people scared.
It was about the Patriot Act “temporarily” halting people’s fundamental freedoms… forever. A huge policy shift that cemented Imperial power abroad, enforced draconian discipline at home and totally changed the political landscape of the entire planet.
I would expect something similar for Joe Biden’s contrived presidency. But what form will it take? Will it be due to the Covid19 “pandemic”, or can we expect another “catalysing event”? It could be the Great Reset, or the Green New Deal. Or both.
While Biden will likely endorse, and even reinforce, US troops all over Africa and the Middle East, his flagship policy is likely to be domestic rather international, and political rather than military. Some brutal authoritarian consolidation of control in a flimsy “progressive” disguise.
Whatever it turns out to be, it will be a sea-change in the way the world works. The Deep State don’t stick their necks out this far for anything less.
Iraq to sue US over sovereignty violation, use of depleted uranium weapons: Official
Press TV – December 14, 2020
An advisor to the Iraqi parliament’s foreign affairs committee says the Baghdad government is planning to lodge an international lawsuit against the United States for violating the country’s sovereignty and using internationally-banned munitions in civilian areas.
Hatif al-Rikabi told Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency in an interview that Iraq is going to file the case at Swedish and German courts over appalling crimes that Washington has perpetrated in the Arab country, including the use of depleted uranium weapons.
Rikabi went on to say that such a measure will ensure international accountability for the US, and will not give it the chance to procrastinate the case.
“Hundreds of cancer cases are recorded every month [in Iraq], and the figure is clear evidence for the extent of the damage that US forces have committed,” he stated, calling on the Iraqi Health Ministry to “release facts and figures about casualties caused by US bombing campaigns.”
US-led wars in Iraq have left behind hundreds of tons of depleted uranium munitions and other toxic wastes.
Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Persian Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.
Contamination from depleted uranium munitions and other military-related pollution is suspected of causing a sharp rise in congenital birth defects, cancer cases, and other illnesses throughout much of Iraq.
Many doctors and scientists maintain that recent emergence of diseases that were not previously seen in Iraq, such as new illnesses in the kidney, lungs, and liver, as well as total immune system collapse are connected to public exposure to war contaminants.
Depleted uranium (DU) contamination may also be related to the substantial rise in leukemia, renal, and anemia cases, especially among children.
Moreover, there has also been a dramatic jump in miscarriages and premature births among Iraqi women, particularly in areas where heavy US military operations occurred, such as Fallujah.
During 2004, the US military carried out two massive military sieges of the city of Fallujah, using large quantities of DU ammunition, as well as white phosphorous.
Cynical US Policy on Syria Revealed: Block the Russians and Iranians, Destroy the Economy, to Hell with the People
By Peter Ford | 21st Century Wire | December 15, 2020
The Rambo of the State Department is leaving. James Jeffrey, the outgoing Syria envoy, boasts about his achievements in a recent candid interview with Al-Monitor which with no sense of shame opens up to public gaze the cynicism, callousness and sheer power-crazedness of US policy on Syria, conducted as though it were a video game or a game of Monopoly.
US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey at Syria-Turkish border (March 2020 Syriac Press)
Jeffrey makes no bones about it. It’s not about ending the Syrian conflict, it’s about prolonging it:
Basically, first and foremost is denial of the [Assad regime] getting military victory… And of course, we’ve ratcheted up the isolation and sanctions pressure on Assad, we’ve held the line on no reconstruction assistance, and the country’s desperate for it. You see what’s happened to the Syrian pound, you see what’s happened to the entire economy. So, it’s been a very effective strategy….
The point is, this [preserving the SDF] is our plan B. We have a plan A. Plan A doesn’t answer ‘how does this all end?’ Plan A’s whole purpose [is] to ensure that the Russians and Assad and the Iranians don’t have a happy answer to how this all ends, and maybe that will someday get them to accept Plan B. Meanwhile, they’re tied up in knots. They don’t see Syria as a victory.
So, we don’t care a jot if Syrian people are suffering greatly, that’s part of the plan. We are happy to prolong the suffering indefinitely as long as the Russians, Iranians and Assad can’t claim victory.
Plan B, by the way, requires implementation on US terms of UN resolution 2254, which would amount effectively to a suicide note for Assad as under those terms it would allow millions of Syrians outside Syria to vote and thus decide the fate of those still inside.
At no point in this lengthy interview does Jeffrey even mention the Syrian people. The only Syrians (condescendingly) mentioned are the Kurdish militia SDF:
The SDF, they’re clean kids. I’ve gotten to know them and their leadership very, very well. They really are phenomenal, by Middle Eastern standards. They’re a highly disciplined Marxist offshoot of the PKK.
So, let’s get this straight: the US is supporting a bunch of Marxists in North East Syria to stop Assad getting the much needed oil for the Syrian people and is indifferent to the fact that Idlib is controlled by a bunch of Islamist fanatics?
Jeffrey in fact does not say a single word about the character of the opposition to acknowledge their Islamist extremism, or about the likely consequences if Plan B were to succeed and deliver the keys of Damascus to Islamist radicals. In this game – and a game is clearly how callous power-crazed Washington policy makers see it – only preventing victory by the other side matters.
Trump emerges as relatively sensible, which is saying a lot.
The president was uncomfortable with our presence in Syria. He was very uncomfortable with what he saw as endless wars. … Trump kept asking, “Why do we have troops there?”
The reason that Trump pulled the troops out was I think because he was just tired of us having to come up with all these explanations for why we’re in there.
We at the State Department never provided any troop numbers to the president. That’s not our job. We didn’t try to deceive him. He kept on publicly saying numbers that were way below what the actual numbers were, so in talking to the media and talking to Congress, we had to be very careful and dodge around. But the Syria mission is the gift that keeps on giving. We and the SDF are still the dominant force in [northeast] Syria.
‘Not our job?’ The deviousness of this is breathtaking. The US State Department deliberately withheld crucial information from the President in order to get their way on keeping their counters on the Monopoly board which for them is Syria.
It’s no surprise that someone of Jeffrey’s calibre boasts about helping Israel to pulverise Syria:
We then also had the Israeli air campaign. The US only began supporting that when I came on board. I went out there and we saw Prime Minister Netanyahu and others, and they thought that they were not being supported enough by the US military, and not by intelligence. And there was a big battle within the US government, and we won the battle.
The argument [against supporting Israel’s campaign] was, again, this obsession with the counterterrorism mission. People didn’t want to screw with it, either by worrying about Turkey or diverting resources to allow the Israelis to muck around in Syria, as maybe that will lead to some blow-back to our forces. It hasn’t.
All that matters is ‘stabilizing the situation’ to US advantage:
So that was how we put together an integrated Syria policy that nestled under the overall Iran policy. The result has been relative success because we — with a lot of help from the Turks in particular — have managed to stabilize the situation.
The only change on the ground to the benefit of Assad has been southern Idlib in two and a half years of attacks. They are highly unlikely to continue, given the strength of the Turkish army there and the magnitude of the defeat of the Syrian army by the Turks back in March.
It would be hard to disagree with that pessimistic analysis. As long as the US puts stymieing its adversaries ahead of any genuine concern for the suffering and prospects of the Syrian people, including the millions of refugees condemned by this policy to indefinite exile, no end is in sight.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Jeffrey worked with Obama long before he worked with Trump. Anybody who expects a Biden administration to follow a different path on Syria must be seriously deluded, unless by ‘different’ is meant an even more reckless, activist, interventionist policy that goes beyond ‘stabilising’.
And there is no Trump there now to apply the brakes.
***
Author Peter Ford is the former British Ambassador to Syria (2003-2006) and Bahrain (1999-2002).
Liberal Except for Palestine
Jewish groups manipulate the message
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • December 15, 2020
It is remarkable how leading Jewish organizations manage to play both sides on so-called “humanitarian” and “human rights” issues. It is, of course, well established that Jewish voters lean heavily “liberal” or “progressive” and constitute perhaps the most solid of all Democratic Party constituencies, so it is almost instinctive on their part that they would want to seize what they perceive to be the moral high ground. More to the point, in terms of their relationship with the Democrats and their various grievance factions, they are also generally cited as the source of the majority of the party’s campaign funding. This has resulted in the Democratic Party establishment’s particularly sensitivity to the needs of that key constituency, invariably carefully avoiding any criticism of Israel while also tending to appoint Israel-first bureaucrats and politicians to senior positions in the government. The Jews in return support the “progressive” politics of the Democrats, both to satisfy their own tribal inclinations, and to assuage any guilt relating to the party’s history of warmongering.
Jewish groups have expressed their pleasure with the appointments so far made by Biden, most particularly Ron Klain as Chief of Staff and Jake Sullivan as National Security Adviser. But the Jewel in the Crown is Tony Blinken as Secretary of State. The Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), which is the Israel support group within the party, has sent out an announcement saying it’s thrilled by the number and quality of “pro-Israel allies” who will be in the upcoming government. Other pro-Israel groups to include the Washington Institute for Near East Peace (WINEP) and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) have been similarly enthusiastic.
Jewish members of Congress are grossly disproportionate to their numbers in the general population (27 in the House and 9 in the Senate). Israeli Lobby power influencing Congress and the White House is clearly visible. Up until the last election Eliot Engel chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Adam Schiff headed the House Intelligence Committee, two key posts firmly in the hands of politicians who had regularly put Israel’s interests first. Schiff’s son has been featured wearing a Mossad T-shirt, without any negative comment apart from folks like myself. One wonders what “liberal” Democrats would have thought if the lad had been wearing a shirt featuring CIA?
Engel is mirabile dictu out of office, but he has been replaced by black New York congressman Gregory Meeks, who obedient to orders did what Jeff Blankfort describes as a “full Uncle Tom,” immediately pronouncing that Israelis have a “right to defend themselves” and Palestinians need to return to the negotiating table and stop “fighting.” Three days earlier, Israeli soldiers had shot dead a fourteen-year-old Palestinian boy, something that Meeks apparently regards as “self-defense,” but, more to the point, consider for a moment the supreme ignorance of Mr. Meeks and the power he will wield over the nation’s foreign policy.
Nancy Pelosi is herself committed to the cause of Israel, having said that “If this capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid –and I don’t even call it aid– our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are,” while president-elect Joe Biden has proudly declared himself to be a Zionist and House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer has proudly declared himself to have “dual loyalty.” Add to that the appointment of Tony Blinken as Secretary of State presumptive for confirmation that the Biden White House will be the usual hotbed of pandering to Israel along the lines of the precedent set by Donald Trump.
Recently, groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have pledged their support for organizations like Black Lives Matter, partly due to their own membership base’s liberal inclinations and also to establish their fictional bona fides as honorable gentlemen and ladies seeking to take steps that are good for American democracy as they see it. They have stated that “We mourn for George Floyd, who was horrifically murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis. There are many marching in the streets across the country and around the world chanting, ‘I can’t breathe’ in tribute to his memory and to demand justice. We mourn for Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and Rayshard Brooks among countless others whose lives were cut short as a result of systemic racism in policing. As an organization committed to fighting all forms of hate, ADL knows that these brutal deaths follow an explosion of racist murders and hate crimes across the U.S. Systemic racism, injustice, and inequality call for systemic change… Join us in combatting the bigotry, racism and discrimination that targets marginalized communities today.”
As a side benefit to all that hail-fellow-well-met conviviality, there is, of course, also a tactical consideration, which is that if Jewish groups can demonstrate such marvelous fellowship with poor downtrodden black folk in the United States, perhaps no one will notice how they look the other way while their co-religionists in Israel practice genocide on the Palestinian Arabs. The ADL statement is pure, unadulterated bullshit, ironical because Jews are by far the wealthiest and best educated demographic in the United States, powerful at all levels and hardly victims of anything. And they work hard to hide the fact that the Israel Lobby exists to serve the Jewish state’s interests, including making sure that the American public is led to believe that nothing is happening when Arab children are shot dead, when the livelihoods of Palestinians are destroyed, and when Israel operates with impunity to assassinate foreign officials and kill innocent civilians en masse in places like Iran, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon.
The hysteria on the part of some Jewish groups to identify with the grievances of black Americans is quite amazing to behold. It now includes memorials to the martyred Floyd George of Minneapolis, whose death triggered last spring and summer’s rioting, in so-called holocaust remembrance sites. The first such George Floyd exhibit has opened within the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center in Orlando, Florida. The intention of the exhibitors is not completely clear, but the identification of Jewish suffering with the black counterpart is intended to suck in the inevitable critics who can conveniently be described as racists, putting both Israel/Jews and American blacks on the side of the angels even though the two have functionally nothing at all to do with each other. So, anyone who might want to argue that the Floyd-holocaust joint commemoration is both ridiculous and a political contrivance might just as well button his or her lip and in so doing avoid the sanctimonious backlash that would be generated from the Jewish managed media no matter how one spins it.
In a recent article in the Jewish publication Forward, Dr. Mia Brett examines Critical Race Theory (CRT), the educational and cultural fraud that is being used to delegitimize Western civilization and comes to the conclusion that “Rather than a tool to oppress Jews, CRT is a critical tool in fighting white supremacy — the gravest threat we face.” “We,” means of course, Jews and blacks together as perpetual victims of a malicious Caucasian kleptocracy. There is no mention of Israel in the article, nor of the Palestinian genocide, but it inter alia reveals what Dr. Brett and others like her think about the rest of us.
Indeed, the claim that some Jewish groups and leaders do not regard themselves beholden to American interests at all has a certain cogency, as does the argument that they do not consider their fellow U.S. citizens to be quite their equal given their Chosen status. Religious leader and Grand Rabbi of the Satmar Hassidim community of Williamsburg, New York, Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, recently declared that his numerous followers should not consider themselves as American but rather as Jews in exile.
Teitelbaum’s views are not unique. There exists an International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians, which is based in Israel. It exists to support Israel and to “To promote an ongoing dialogue and a sense of fraternity among Jewish legislators and ministers.” One might well ask why a parliamentarian representing the people in a country should identify with and, let’s face it, conspire with foreign representatives of other nations based on religion? And support the interests of a foreign country, Israel, also due to religious affinity? One might suggest that that is what charges of “dual loyalty” are all about, though it might indeed be better described as “singular” or primary loyalty.
There should be little doubt that American Jews have by hook and by crook come to occupy the driver’s seat in many key sectors of both the economy and in political life. The trick of lining up with those oppressed both to demonstrate one’s ethical superiority and to avoid having one’s interests scrutinized through assertion of having suffered a similar victimhood has been played again and again. Floyd George in a holocaust memorial? Sure, why not. The reality of George does not exactly fit in with the hagiography that has grown up around him since his death just as Israel and American Jews constantly claiming victimhood so that their own behavior and that of Israel cannot be subject to accountability is also a hypocritical political ploy that does not reflect reality.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
‘Hate crime entrepreneurs’ are cashing in on taxpayers’ money while they try to kill free speech in Britain
© Getty Images/Ray Tang/Anadolu Agency
By Joanna Williams | RT | December 15, 2020
Free speech is under assault in the UK from organisations who inflate the number of supposed ‘hate crimes’ and ‘incidents’ to fill their coffers with government cash and leave us with only police-sanctioned expression.
Make a bad joke on Twitter, give a speech at a Conservative party conference, or refer to someone using the wrong pronouns, and you could find the police knocking on your door.
Last year, the police in England and Wales recorded over 100,000 hate crimes, up eight percent on the previous year.
Hate crime is defined as “any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.” This can include verbal abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, or bullying, directed at individuals or groups on account of their race, religion, sexuality, disability or transgender identity. In addition to this – and the cause of much of the door-knocking – police also investigate and report ‘hate incidents.’ A hate incident is not a criminal offence at all, but simply any speech or action that someone from a ‘protected’ group finds offensive.
As I investigate in ‘Policing Hate’, a new report published by the think tank Civitas, in England and Wales today we do not have free speech. We are only permitted to say things that do not offend others. And we do not have equality before the law; some groups of people are awarded additional legal protections to everyone else.
Now, the Law Commission, an independent body designed to review the law and make recommendations to the government, is proposing changes to hate crime legislation. Unfortunately, if enacted, these changes will go even further in curtailing free speech.
To understand why the Law Commission’s proposals are so censorious, we need to look to the influence of groups I’ve labelled ‘hate crime entrepreneurs’. These are charities and campaigning organisations, like Stonewall, Disability Rights UK, and StopHate UK, that support and advocate for people with disabilities, transgender people, and the lesbian, gay and bisexual community.
Many of these groups do a great job of representing their members’ interests. But when it comes to the law, this is a problem – they are neither neutral nor objective. In order to raise the money necessary to keep services functioning and pay staff wages, they need to present the people they support as disadvantaged and oppressed. Hate crime and hate incidents appear to provide one measure of just how victimised a particular group is.
But no matter how many statistics about hate incidents charities compile, we are no nearer to having an objective measure of the verbal abuse or hostility different groups experience. Offence is experienced subjectively. It is entirely possible for two people to hear the exact same joke, or listen to the exact same speech, and for one person to be offended while the other finds only humour or interest. One person might see themselves as a victim of a hate crime while their friend brushes off the same incident with a shrug of the shoulders.
Through their websites and campaigning, groups like Stonewall define hate crime and then encourage their members to see themselves as victims and to report crimes to the police. They then use these inflated statistics as part of their publicity material. Stonewall, for example, claims, “Two in five trans people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months.” This sounds shocking, but it may mean little more than they saw a transgender person being ‘misgendered’ on social media.
Furthermore, many groups that lobby on behalf of particular communities receive government funding for their work. For example, ‘Challenge It, Report It, Stop It’, a previous government hate crime action plan, reports on plans to support a range of groups such as the Jewish Museum, Show Racism the Red Card, Searchlight Educational Trust, and Faith Matters’ ‘Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks’ (MAMA) project. As a result, these groups are effectively paid by the government to tell groups advising the government (civil servants or the Law Commission) what they want to hear.
Hate crime entrepreneurs have a vested interest in presenting the people they represent as victims. So it is hardly surprising that, when asked by the Law Commission, they argue for the law to be changed to define hate crime ever more broadly and to extend protections to yet more groups. What is surprising is that the Law Commission should draw upon evidence from such organisations in compiling recommendations for legal changes.
As the Law Commission’s paper makes clear, these campaigning organisations, along with academics, have had considerable influence in shaping both the analysis and recommendations that comprise the consultation. The role of hate crime entrepreneurs is evident in the paper’s acknowledgement that, “every submission to the inquiry containing data about local or national trends had agreed that: the situation is getting worse and that, due to large numbers of hate crimes not being reported to third-party services or the police, the true profile of hate crime in the UK is akin to an iceberg, with the majority hidden from view.”
If the legal limits on what we can say are to be determined by those with a financial incentive to be easily offended, then we will have even less free speech than we have at present. If hate crime entrepreneurs get their way, we will be left with nothing other than state-sanctioned, police-approved speech. It is vitally important that, before the Law Commission’s consultation closes on December 24, they hear from people who consider free speech to be the most important, foundational right we have.
Joanna Williams is the founder of the think tank Cieo. She is the author of Women vs Feminism, Why We All Need Liberating From the Gender Wars and is a regular columnist for Spiked. Follow her on Twitter @jowilliams293
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From the Archives
An Expert Military Analysis of War with China
Actually, None is Necessary
By Fred Reed • Unz Review • December 13, 2020
The Correlation of Armed Forces: U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled an estimated $634.8 billion in 2019. Exports were $163.0 billion; imports were $471.8 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $308.8 billion in 2019. Trade in services with China (exports and imports) totaled an estimated $76.7 billion in 2019. Services exports were $56.5 billion; services imports were $20.1 billion. The U.S. services trade surplus with China was $36.4 billion in 2019.
There is talk within the Washingtoniat of a possible war with China. Steve Bannon, who apparently was dropped on his head as a child, actually favors such a war. We hear the usual shoo-the-boobs alarm about how the Chinese are doing something terrible and we must gird our loins and American values and show them what for, bow wow, woof. The danger is that the current game of who-blinks-first in Asian waters might actually provoke a shooting war. You know the kind of thing: One warship refuses to get out of the way of another, a collision ensues, some retard lieutenant who signed up on waivers opens fire, and we’re off and running. It is not a good idea to let children play with matches.
The said war is discussed either in emotional terms by idiots or in purely naval terms by those familiar with such things, so we hear of the First Island Chain and the Second Island Chain and whose missiles against the other’s missiles and so on. This would be appropriate if we were fighting World War Two again. Which we aren’t. Let’s take a quick-and-dirty look at how such a war might go.
To begin the war, America would overestimate itself and underestimate China. This is doctrine in the Pentagon. … continue
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